When the Stars Fall, I Want You To Be Here
by queen-of-whump
Summary: Winchester. Never in the span of human history has a name contained such an utterly endless depth of meaning. Its meaning cannot be spoken in words, but it can be seen in the lives saved, the blood splattered, the hearts broken, the lives traumatized, the evil fleeing. The men that walk with the name on their shoulders are not really men, not anymore. MAJORWHUMP!
1. Chapter 1

**Hey people! First Supernatural story, so...let me know how I do. I feel like I have a good grasp on the characters, but I'm fairly new to the show in general.**

**That being said, I sacrificed sleep to get myself all the way up to season 8. Also, I understand references like "wormstache" and "moose". Am I officially a fan?**

**Anyway, enjoy! **

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**I don't own Supernatural...or Eric Kripke...Or J2. **

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**(Update: I did some editing, I was informed that the story was a little confusing at the beginning! Also, Just deleted and reuploaded ALL the chapters; I apologize for the confusing format of the paragraphs earlier! I didn't realize that they were all running into each other. The documents program I'm using doesn't transition well to . Hope you enjoy!)**

Sam was staring out over the city of Jericho, California, his eyes wet with tears.

"Dean, please say I'm imagining this."

Dean just shook his head, speechless.

Sam felt queasy. This couldn't be happening.

One by one, the stars were falling from the sky.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

_A Week Earlier: _

"I'm sorry."

Dean stiffened and downed another gulp of his beer. "You're _sorry, _Cas?"

"Yes." Cas looked confused. "I'm sorry, was that not clear enough?"

"Sorry's not going to cut it." Sam said, trying hard to conceal his panic. Dean was obviously furious, but Sam could see the same terror in his brother's eyes. "Don't you get it, Cas?"

"Oh. I suppose that would be correct. But you know there is nothing I can do...this whole situation is out of my control. I am doing my best to determine the cause of this disaster."

Sam tried to exhale, but the air seemed stuck in a bubble in his stomach somewhere.

"We know that, Cas."

Dean stood up. "It's not good enough, Cas. Sam and I just watched several _thousand_ people just walk casually to their deaths. Thousands! We have to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Cas nodded and vanished.

"Dean, let's take a walk. I _really _need some air."

Sam watched as Dean finished his beer.

"Did you hear me?" Silence. "Dean!"

"Yeah, I heard you." Dean stood still, his back to his brother.

The two were silent for a moment, just staring.

They'd seen the most gruesome, horrifying disaster only a day earlier. A town they'd been visiting for a minor ghost issue had simply dropped what they were doing and walked into the ocean. It didn't make sense; a whole town had just up and died in whatever way seemed most convenient. Some had jumped off of rooftops, some had locked themselves in their garages and started their cars, some had stabbed themselves with kitchen appliances.

All had happened in absolute silence.

Sam and Dean were at a complete loss; they were still asking themselves where to start looking.

"Let's take that walk." Dean finally said.

"Hang on, I think I'm gonna be sick." Sam gasped breathlessly.

He rested his broad forehead on the cool porcelain toilet seat moments later, his body still heaving as the sour mess drained away. He could still taste it. It was only when he had stopped emptying his stomach that he became aware that Dean was there; silent. Dean was never silent. He was rubbing circles into Sam's back, but didn't seem to be all there.

How could this be happening to them?

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

_Now...come on...what's wrong with you?...Sam!_

"Sam? Come on, man. You can do it. Wake up."

Sam's head wouldn't let him wake up.

"I...can't."

He wasn't sure if he'd said that part out loud or not.

"Yeah you can, dumbo. Wake up." Dean's voice said gruffly.

Somehow, Sam's eyes opened.

"Hey, hey." Dean grabbed Sam's arm and helped him sit up. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Sam shook his head.

"Dude, not funny! I've been trying to wake you up for an hour now!"

Sam massaged his temples with his fingertips. His head was whirling. "An hour?"

"Yeah. You weren't moving. You sure you're okay?"

"Umm." Sam closed his eyes, trying to focus. "My stomach feels a little weird."

Dean just nodded, but still looked concerned.

"You want something to eat? ...Or not that kind of weird?" he added quickly, backpedaling as Sam grimaced at the mention of food.

"Dude, I don't know. I'll be fine."

"You better be stinkin' fine. We gotta stop the apocalypse. Again." Dean groaned. "Come on, get dressed. We've got to get going."

Sam felt better very shortly after. It had been some weird fluke. He was fine.

They even stopped in a small diner on the edge of town and got some breakfast before hitting the highway. Sam managed to get a few bites down.

The rest of the world didn't seem to be as fine, however.

Before the town itself even came into sight, a cloud of dust and smoke was visible on the horizon.

Dean swore under his breath as he floored it, sending the Impala speeding towards the distress.

"Not again, please not again."

Even on the outside of the town, they had to slow to maneuver their way through the crowds. Vehicles, as well as mobs on foot, swarmed out of the town. Keeping their heads down and the doors locked, Sam and Dean swarmed in.

The town was a disaster.

"Hang on. Gonna be bumpy." Dean muttered, bending the Impala around a pile of bodies in the middle of the street.

Sam looked out the window, covering his nose and mouth. Smoke filled the air from the burning building on either side of the street. The buildings that weren't smoldering had collapsed. Some of the townspeople must have started the fires. The sickeningly sweet smell of burning flesh was thick and suffocating, bearing down on the Winchester's with every breath they took.

They started driving over the bridge but had to stop after only driving a few feet onto it. The bridge was completely congested with people lining up to throw themselves over the side.

"We have to help them, Dean! We have to make them stop!"

Dean was already getting out of the car and running towards a small family who were holding hands; only a few yards from the edge of the bridge. He started screaming, waving his arms and trying to get their attention as they neared death.

It was as if he wasn't even there; the mother and father continued walking towards the bridge, clutching the hands of their two small children, who were just as robotic and expressionless as their parents.

"Sam, help me grab them!"

Dean grabbed the two kids, two boys, and started yanking them towards the car. Sam threw himself on top of the man, who struggled violently against him. Sam kept him pressed down and reached for the woman, but it was too late. He caught her scarf as she fell, and soon the piece of fabric was the only sign that the woman had been on the bridge at all.

Sam bit back a cry as the man elbowed him hard in the ribs. He tried to keep the man on the ground, but he wasn't as strong. Making low growling noises, the man threw Sam off, wrenched his children away from Dean with a berserk-like ferocity, and threw the three of them off the bridge.

"We've gotta start shooting!" Dean shouted.

"Are you crazy?"

Dean tossed a shotgun at Sam. "Don't kill them, just make them immobile! It's better than them dying, Sam!"

Understanding, Sam aimed at a woman who was running full speed towards the edge. The people had all increased the intensity of their pursuit, they seemed to have sensed that someone was trying to stop them.

Sam fired, and the woman fell, her leg jerking out violently as her nerves tried to compensate for the sudden, fiery pain. Turning, Sam shot down another person, than another. He aimed for the people who were closer to destruction.

"I'm out!" he called back, the trigger clicking hollowly.

Dean didn't answer, but Sam heard more shots behind him. Dean still had ammo. After thinking for a moment, Sam waded into another large group of people, kicking some down and knocking others out with the butt of the gun.

But it wasn't enough. The ones who had been shot still managed to pull themselves to the edge, falling off slowly. The ones who were still up were helping, throwing others off and then jumping themselves.

Sam grabbed another round from the trunk of the Impala and was loading it into his gun, but suddenly the pain in his head raged up without warning. He fell to his knees, leaning against the car. He couldn't breathe.

He could hear Dean firing shots and calling his name at the same time, but he had no strength to answer. Consciousness slipped away just as he watched another person fall to their death.

**What do you think?**

**Reviews are love!**

**Ohhhh and just to let you know. I'm crazy. And as a result of this insanity, I'm trying to keep up with writing about five stories from different tv shows. So the next chapter might not come for a while. :) **


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello! Missed you all, and missed writing! I'm happy to be back. Hope you enjoy this chapter! Reviews are love! **

**{Audrey}**

Dean gripped the steering wheel as tightly as he could

"Dean?"

Dean looked at him in the rear view mirror.

"Thank goodness. Are you alright?"

"I think so. What happened, Dean?"

Dean stared straight ahead, silent.

"Dean...are you okay?"

Dean was silent for a while longer.

"They knocked me out, Sam."

Sam swallowed hard, knowing by instinct what was coming next.

"When I woke up..." Dean coughed, clearing his throat. "They were all gone."

Sam couldn't say anything. He could just imagine Dean lying there on the ground unconscious as people around him rushed to die. He was just thankful that they hadn't decided to take himself or his brother with them. He stared out his window at the trees that were rushing past. The sun had gone behind a cloud, which seemed appropriate, but it all felt so wrong, as if the world was going on without noticing the loss of its inhabitants. An unwelcome sensation crept in, and he just managed to ask Dean to pull over in time. Dean fortunately didn't ask any questions and jerked the Impala to the shoulder of the highway.

Sam flung open his door and ducked his head as everything in his stomach came up again. Through his own retching, he heard Dean get around, and soon the older Winchester had a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder. He heard him mutter something like "poor kid", and sigh heavily.

"You okay, Sam?"

Sam wiped his mouth weakly. "Think so."

"Let's get you somewhere to rest. We can worry more about the end of the world after we've had some sleep."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNS

Over the next week Dea fell into a systematic way of life along with his brother. They would drive to a different town, almost praying that they would be allowed to help. The towns were all the same. Destruction and rubble and blood were all that remained of the towns. There were never any survivors.

Voices were never heard; no whimpers or screams came out of anyone. The children were even silent.

Sam and Dean fought the people the best they could, spending hours planning and carrying out different ways to restrain people. The suicidal souls had developed a seemingly supernatural strength, however, and always managed to best Sam and Dean. The longest they kept anyone alive was two days. Dean's body ached from all the touchdown style tackles he'd performed, and he knew Sam was hurting as well. Nothing they did ever seemed to work.

And Cas wouldn't answer them. Dean didn't voice his thoughts on the angel; didn't complain that he was missing. It was hard enough as it was, with Sam being sick.

Dean cursed. And then cursed again. He hated to see Sam sick. His brother's headaches had been triggering bouts of insomnia and nausea like nothing he'd ever had before. Dean was so confused; his brother hadn't had these headaches since he'd worked with Ruby. He was sure of it.

Sam stumbled out of the bathroom and into Dean's train of thought.

"Hey, sit down, man." Dean gently guided his brother to sit on the edge of the bed and handed him a bag of frozen peas.

Sam groaned deeply as he leaned forward and placed the cold compress to his neck.

"We can't keep going like this, Sammy. You have to take a break."

"No." Sam gasped. "We have to help."

"How are we helping? If you have an idea, I'd love to hear it. I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little sick of driving through towns and watching people go to their deaths."

Dean watched Sam shake his head, as if to clear out the memories that rose to the surface. Dean had to try to hold back the memories himself; he'd seen a lot in his day, but this. It was two days ago that had been the worst sighting yet.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

The people that were locked into death mode seemed to have a tendency to drown themselves, Sam and Dean noticed. In southern California, they had tried to stop a whole rush hour's worth of traffic from driving into the ocean. It had been unsuccessful. Sam had had another attack just as they had plunged into the water after a Toyota Camry belonging to two young lovers.

Dean had stopped, his heart sinking with the car. There were too many of them; and he had just barely grabbed Sam as he had gone under, barely conscious. He forced himself to come to terms with the reality that this town would be another loss. His brother was more important.

When they arrived back at the hotel, Sam sank into the chair in front of his laptop and started madly typing.

"What the heck are you doing?" Dean asked flatly.

"Thirty-one thousand, seven hundred and three." Sam whispered.

"No." Dean said, joining his brother in staring at the monitor. "No, there weren't that many. There couldn't have been."

"That's the official population."

Dean shook his head and sighed.

"Stand up."

"Why?"

"Just do it." Dean requested. "I need the chair."

"Yeah, of course." Sam scrambled to his feet.

He stood up and reached out to ease his brother into the seat. Instead of sitting, however, Dean seized the green padded chair and hurled it across he room.

"Dean..."

"Over thirty thousand people, Sam, and we watched them walk like brainless jello lumps to their deaths! We just watched!"

"We didn't just watch. You know that! And if I hadn't gotten sick, maybe we could have saved them."

"I want to believe that, too, but that's not what we've seen. These guys are strong and reckless. We couldn't have done it, Sam! We can't do anything."

"You are right."

Castiel's sudden appearance in the room instantly made Dean more agitated.

"You could have warned us about this! What gives, Cas?"

Cas put up his hand, barely holding Dean back from colliding with him. "You wouldn't have believed me."

"Is that what you think? Cas, your track record...we would have believed you. You should have told us!"

"There is nothing that can be done. It will happen again, and again. It will happen until the human race ceases to exist. Some will jump into volcanoes, some will go over cliff edges. Some will feed themselves to wild animals. I'm sorry."

Sam could see the blurred, flipped image of his computer monitor in the tears forming in his eyes. He didn't even know what he was doing. He'd hit refresh four times before he focused in on the Jericho population page again.

"Dean." he croaked. "Look at this."

He felt the warmth of breath on his right ear and turned to stare right into Cas' cheek. "Cas. Personal space. Again."

Dean was looking over his left shoulder, peering at the screen. "What is it?"

"Look at the population number. This is the same page we were just on, and I just refreshed it. It's been updated."

Dean's eyes widened as he read. "Current population...zero."

"How did this happen?" Sam wondered.

"There are eyes of the enemy everywhere." Cas stated gloomily.

"And the enemy is?" Dean looked at the angel expentantly.

"I honestly have no idea. But he is powerful."

"Great. We would have appreciated a little more detail earlier, Cas."

Cas was silent

"Cas?"

Cas was frozen. Almost as if he was frozen in time. His eyes were wide and he was pointing in warning. Dean turned and looked at Sam, who was just as mesmerized by the angel's sudden change.

"Why is he pointing at you?" Dean queried.

"No idea." Sam lifted his arms and stared down at his body, then glanced around.

"That's weird."

Dean looked back at Cas, who had suddenly vanished.

"That guy has issues." Dean growled. "C'mon, Sammy. We got work to do."

"Really, Dean? Because the whole situation seems kind of hopeless to me."

"Listen. Cas is wrong."

"Dean..."

"He just is, okay? I mean, how many times did someone tell us to give up, or that our fate was set in stone? We can beat this. We have to."

Sam nodded. "Okay, Dean. Where do we start?"

Dean shook his head. "Let's find a town to save. That's a start."


	3. Chapter 3

The morning light was so ironic, Sam thought as the hotel curtains failed to hold back the sun. How dare the sun rise after what it had seen in the last two weeks? How did it even have the heart to get up when it knew the horror of death again? Sam knew that that was how he felt about it. It took everything he had to get up in the morning. Fortunately, 'everything he had' was a fierce determination to protect his brother and a deep desire for justice. That's what he told himself, anyway. Justice was such a skewed idea. Maybe it always had been.

They'd spent the night in Billings, Montana. The day before they'd watched the destruction of a small town in Wyoming, only a few hours' drive over.

"Dean, do you want the first shower?" he muttered groggily as he rolled out of bed.

"Dean?"

His brother was gone. Sam jolted up, his heart plummeting ad landing with a sickening splat in his already weak stomach. He might throw up.

Dean's things were scattered around the room; his bed was unmade, and the door to their motel room was standing wide open.

His eyes were watering, and as he breathed deeply to calm himself, the musky thick gauze of smoke consumed his senses. Smothered his senses.

"Dean?"

He ran out the door...the Impala was still there. The keys were in the ignition, and the driver's door was open.

"Oh...bad."

Sam jogged across the parking lot to the main office. The rusty little bell above the door cried painfully as he slammed it into the wall.

"Ma'am..." he leaned against the counter, almost climbing over it in his urgency. "Has a man come through here? Little shorter than me, short brown hair, looks like he could be an underwear model?"

The receptionist had her back to him the whole time he was speaking, and didn't move.

"Hello?"

She still didn't move.

"Hey, are you okay?" Sam came around the desk and grabbed her gently by the shoulders

She was crying and frantically shoving papers and personal items into her bag. Sam shook her and waved his hand in front of her, but she didn't respond.

"Oh, no. Not here. It can't be happening here." he muttered.

He ran outside again, this time seeing the crowds of people silently making their way past the motel on the main street.

Where on earth was Dean?  
SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean couldn't see. He knew that his feet were moving, and he felt tears running down his cheeks, but he didn't know why they were there. He wasn't sad. He was just walking.

He didn't even know where he was walking; not that it mattered, but Sam might have wanted to know. He wondered if Sam was still sleeping. When he'd left this morning to...well, he didn't know why he'd left...his brother had still been sleeping. Maybe that was good; maybe his brother would get better.

His feet hurt; he'd been walking for hours. Shoes might have been a beneficial idea, but they hadn't seemed to matter before. There was something sticky between his toes. Probably blood. He looked down. Yep, it was blood.

He pushed the door open and walked in, grimacing at the loud noises. He slipped and fell as he approached; after that he was more careful and picked his way around the puddles. He was soaked, and he didn't enjoy the sensation. He could see his reflection in them, red and shadowy. Some of the blood on the ground was already dry. He couldn't see his reflection in that.

"Dean!"

Dean started climbing the stairs. The woman in front of him tripped, falling to her knees on the stairs, her blonde hair making funny jerky motions as her forehead bounced off the step in front of her. Dean contemplated the odd sound her body made as he climbed over it. He probably had broken a few of her bones. Maybe her neck.

"Dean!"

The last thing Dean saw was the whirring blades of the trash compactor, inviting him in.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam shook his hair out of his eyes, panting as he moved slowly towards the Impala.

"Really should lay off the bacon cheeseburgers, big brother." he groaned out, adjusting Dean's limp form over his shoulder. His left arm was screaming at him, but he kept his hand on his brother's shoulder, balancing the dead weight.

He bit his lip. He was trying to lighten up, trying to make the situation okay in his own mind. Of course it wasn't okay.

_Come on, Sam. Breathe._

He'd followed the zombie-like crowds to the warehouse where trash was processed. Forcing his way through the congested cluster of moving bodies in the doorway, he'd quickly started searching the room for his brother.

Dean wasn't hard to find. What Sam saw next would be scarred into his memory for ever. Dean, covered in blood, was moving towards the stairs of the huge machine. Giant blades whirled inside it, and Sam ducked his head as a person jumped into the machine. Obviously, he wasn't the first one to do so, judging by the gory mess filling the room and covering the older Winchester.

Sam felt his voice crack as he screamed his brother's name, but Dean didn't even hesitate. Sam rushed towards him as he started climbing the stairs,

"Dean!"

His brother was scrambling over the body of a young woman on the stair ahead of him; Sam cried out in horror as his brother soullessly crushed her neck with his heavy boot and continued towards the opening of the machine.

Sam barely tackled him down in time. Grabbing his brother, he lurched himself backwards towards the stairs with his whole weight. The two of them rolled down the stairs. Sam shouted in agony as his arm snapped under Dean's heavy torso.

Panic rushed into his heart; he realized he was losing control. How was he going to get Dean out with a broken arm?

Dean was already standing back up, seemingly unaffected by the tumble. Sam must have broken his fall.

Breathing through the pain, Sam dove at his brother again, this time taking the butt of his gun to the back of Dean's head, effectively rendering him unconscious.

"Come on Dean, we have to get out of here." he grunted.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam gripped the wheel of the car tightly with his uninjured hand. Dean was slumped over in the passenger seat, breathing peacefully with a sickeningly peaceful smile on his face. Sam pressed his left arm against his chest, comforting the damaged limb as much as he could. He'd tied his top plaid shirt tightly around it in an attempt to keep it in place, and that was about as good as it was going to get for now. There were more important things going on right now. Much more important things.

"Now would be a good time, Cas." he growled. "Get down here and help me."

Pain starting grinding into his head; not the normal kind, but the special Sam-psychic kind.

"No, no, no, not now! Please not now!" He jerked the wheel, pulling the car over to the side of the road. He barely pushed the gear shift into park when it started again; he wrenched the door open and knelt in the grass alongside the road, the contents of his stomach making an unwelcome reappearance.

Sam tried to breathe, he could feel his consciousness slipping away, and he couldn't let that happen. Not now.

"Sam, are you alright?"

He'd never been so happy to hear the angel's voice in his life.

Castiel knelt beside Sam, awkwardly placing a hand on his back.

"Sam, can you hear me? Are you alright?"

The angel seemed to suddenly realize that Sam couldn't talk and throw up at the same time.

"Oh...uh, I'll just wait. I'm sorry for your condition. Spewing blood from your mouth appears to be incredibly unpleasant."

It wasn't blood. Or was it?

Crap.


	4. Chapter 4

"No, that's reverse. Reverse!" Sam swallowed back the wave of watery, bloody pain and pointed at the gears again.

"The letter 'D', Cas. That's where you want to shift it to."

"I'm sorry, Sam. I've never operated a car before."  
"It's okay." Sam closed his eyes.

Dean was still sleeping peacefully in the backseat as if nothing was happening.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

After Sam had finished being sick, Cas had helped him up.

"Where is Dean?" Cas had asked, then made an odd surprised noise as Sam doubled over, grabbing his arm. Sam could have sworn that Cas had cursed in Enochian as he'd caught the Winchester.

"You're not alright. Allow me to help you into the car."

Sam had complied, collapsing into the front seat after Cas transported Dean to the back.

"What happened to him?"

"The...apocalypse zombie-walk deal; I found him about to jump into a shredder."

"You can't be serious."

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"Sam..."

"I'm serious, Cas. It was awful. I don't..."

"That's not what I was going to talk about...I was going to inform you that I have never driven a car. I might need some assistance and direction."

"Yeah; alright."

It had been a painfully slow fifteen minutes of Cas trying to figure out to drive, with Sam's help. Sam was about to offer, but Cas suddenly placed his hand against the dash of the Impala and closed his eyes, a concentrating, soulful look on his face. The Impala purred happily and took off down the road.

"I guess that works." Sam muttered.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

The voice in Sam's head was foggy and far away, but it was persuasive.

"Wake up, Sam. Please wake up."

"I'm...I'm awake."

He cried out as his jolted awakening moved his arm.

He opened his eyes; Cas had somehow managed to get both brothers back into their hotel room. Out the window, Sam could see the Impala sitting in a parking space without a scratch.

"Let me fix your arm for you." Cas said sympathetically, stepping towards Sam.

Sam breathed, eager for the relief and wholeness that was only moments away.

Cas stopped dead in his tracks, a mere few steps away from Sam. His finger slowly raised and pointed at Sam.

"Oh, please not again." Sam whispered, starting to sit up.

Cas had frozen again.

"Cas!" he leapt towards the stone-like angel, and as he reached out his arm to grab Cas, the angel disappeared.

"Sam?"

Sam's horror at Cas' disappearance quickly was forgotten as his brother's voice broke the silence.

"Dean!"

He hurried to the bed where Dean was sprawled, and gingerly sat down. "Are you okay? Feeling alright?"

Dean sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Dude, why am I covered in blood?"

"It's a long story. Do you remember anything?"

"I remember going to bed last night." Dean tilted his head to study his brother's expression. "Tell me what happened."

Sam recounted the whole day's events back to his brother, intentionally leaving out the part where Dean trampled a woman. Dean didn't need to know that.

"We have to find out what's going on. Sam, this is ridiculous!" Dean was clenching and un-clenching his fists; Sam knew how upset he must be. The idea of being out of control, the idea of dying, was not new to Dean or Sam, but it never got more comfortable.

Sam stood up to pace the room, hissing and clutching his arm.

"You're hurt. Sit." Dean said, his eyes widening and his body language softening as he went into big brother mode.

"What happened?"

"I fell. Arm broke." Sam said through his teeth.

Dean cursed. "Did I do this to you?"

Sam was silent.

"I'm so sorry...I didn't know."

"It wasn't your fault, Dean!" Sam argued. "Can we just get me fixed up please?"

Dean knelt on the floor in front of Sam. "You know this is going to hurt, right?"

"Shut up."

Dean nodded and hesitantly took the limb in his hands, slowly untying and unwrapping the shirt and putting it aside.

"That's a really bad break. I don't know if I can...we might have to go to the hospital, man."

"Whole town is dead, remember?" Sam said listlessly, trying to find shapes in the wall to distract him from his arm.

"Right." Dean shook his head. "K, Sam, I'm going to set this."

"About time." Sam tried to sound confident, but this part was never easy.

"Man, I'm so sorry Sam."

Sam simply nodded and gripped his brother's shoulder with his good hand.

"Do it."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean was fighting the raging emotions inside with every ounce of his strength. Hard things had come their way before, but this...who was to say it was over? What had he done while in his comatose-like state? He felt like Sam was leaving out some details of what had happened, but considering his brother's current condition, he was willing to put question aside for the moment.

Now, here he was on his knees before his brother, holding the very badly broken arm in his hands, trying to shake the image of his brother's face and the cries that would come as soon as he took action.

"Dean, please. Let's get it over with."

Dean moved his face closer to the break, examining it.

"We're going to have to do this a little differently." he announced. "Lie on your back."

"What are you doing?"  
"I can do this, Sam. This will work."

Sam shook his head.

"Okay, here we go man." Dean pulled a roll of gauze out of his bag and reached for Sam's arm.

"What are you doing?"

"Trust me, I saw a break just like this on Youtube. This is how they set it, I watched it four times to be sure."

"You really just watch videos on setting broken bones? Why?" Sam asked incredulously.

"For times just like this. And it's about to pay off."

Dean gently took his brother's wrist and lifted it so that the forearm was vertical to the bed. Sam gasped, but Dean knew that at this point it was best to press through and get it over with.

"Hold up your fingers with the other hand...I'm sorry man, I know it hurts. Just hold your fingers for me. I'm gonna wrap your arm."

Dean wrapped the arm all the way past the elbow with the gauze, and then took Sam's forearm in his hands again.

"Sam, this is going to take a while. And it's going to hurt. If we just snapped the bone back like we have with breaks in the past, it might splinter. I think that's probably why my ankle still bothers me sometimes. So I'm going to ease it back into place. It'll heal better."

"Please don't." Sam said faintly. Dean's heart broke at the sound of his brother's voice. "I can put up with it getting sore the rest of my life, but I can't handle you slowly grinding my arm around. Not now."

"I'm sorry, Sammy. You'll thank me later." he paused and shook his head. "Doubtful. But trust me, okay? I wouldn't hurt you if I didn't have to."

Dean felt the lump in the arm again, then breathed deeply and started maneuvering the bone into its proper location.

For a few seconds, Sam hung in there, breathing heavily and deeply, obviously trying to maintain calm. It didn't last long, however. When Dean had to start moving more forcefully, pressing his knee against Sam's bicep and pressing more of his body weight against the fracture, Sam started screaming.

Dean let the arm go for a moment as he took off his belt and placed it in Sam's teeth.

"It's okay. Sammy, you have to be quiet. We don't want the maid or the manager coming in here, okay? Bite on this. I've almost got it."

The last part was a lie. Dean knew that the bone was only about halfway to where it needed to be.

It was going to be a long night.


	5. Chapter 5

**Please let me know what you think of this story! I've become a HUGE Supernatural fan since I started writing this story, and have made it all the way through to season 8...twice. I might need help or rehab or something. I'm a Dean girl, but I'm Sam curious. I find it's more enjoyable to beat up Sam than Dean. Hopefully I'll write some Cas whumpage as well!**

**Reviews are love!**

**{Audrey}**

Cas jolted into consciousness.

Instantly, his highly developed intellect informed him that something was extremely wrong. His hands had been roughly tied behind him, and it was incredibly dark.

That wasn't the part that was wrong, though. He was an angel. Simple rope should not be holding him. He would not have lost consciousness from just any encounter.

The room smelled heavily of reapers. And reapers were not powerful enough to keep an angel without so much as a ring of burning holy oil or a bloody angels trap. No, there was something very wrong with this situation.

"Castiel."

"Who are you?" he said to the being in the darkness. "Show yourself."

"I will not. You have no power here. I will deliver orders unto you, and you will carry them out perfectly."

"And if I don't?"  
"The Winchester brothers will surely perish."

Castiel's heart sank.

He was in such situations far more frequently than he was happy with.

"What are these orders?"

"You will never return to the Winchesters."

"Not going to happen." Cas growled. "I will protect and help the Winchesters until I have no power or breath left within me."

"We'll see about that." the voice growled.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean wrapped the last loop of cast tape around Sam's arm and gently lowered it to the bed.

"All done." he said, proudly surveying his work. It would take a while for the plaster to finish setting, but it was looking great so far. "How are you doing, Sam?"

Sam was pale and sweating, but he managed to nod at his brother.

"M'alright. Thanks Dean."

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. "That...that was something. Remind me to never break my arm again."

"Well, you didn't. It was me." Dean said stiffly, sitting on his bed. "Sam, why aren't you telling me everything about what happened? It can't have been as simple as me walking out and you saving me."

Sam shook his head, his eyes staying closed. "Not important, Dean. You're safe now."  
"Yeah, but there are...seventeen thousand now that are dead." Dean said, checking the population count on his laptop. "It's doing that funny thing again...former population 17,514, current population zero. Zilch." he stared at Sam. "What part of that is okay? All those people are dead, and I just manage to get out?"

"We can't save everyone Dean, we know that. Besides, you aren't part of this town. You're different."

"You know that's crap, Sam."

The other side of the room was silent.

Dean flopped back onto his own bed, and folded his arms over his chest.

"So Cas did that disappearing act again?"  
"Yeah." Sam sighed heavily.

"I wonder what he's trying to say. It's all so wrong."

"Dean, can we discuss this later? I kind of just want to go to sleep. My arm..."

"Yeah, yeah. Of course. Want aspirin?"  
"Please."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

"Tell me, Castiel, how to the humans define pain?"

The chains on the whip rattled as the cloaked figure pulled back his arm and sank the spikes into Castiel's flesh again.

Cas didn't satisfy his torturer with either an answer or a cry.

"I propose we conduct an experiment. You see, I've tortured many humans in my time, but this is my first angel. It's a pleasure. Really it is, Castiel.

"Here is my proposition: I have within my power right now the ability to determine the difference between a human's tolerance of torture and the tolerance of an angel. So far, you are way above anything any human could withstand. You should be proud." the reaper, or whatever it was, chuckled. "However...however. I know you have more in you. We can go further."

Cas gurgled as blood blocked his airway. This would not end well. This torturer knew what he was doing, and Castiel was experiencing an uncomfortably high amount of pain; he was aware that it would only get more unbearable from here. What hurt more than the bloody, damaged flesh of his vessel, though, was the knowledge that the Winchesters would eternally be angry that he had left them. They would assume that he had tired of them, or that he had simply given up.

It was that thought alone that was spurring him on to continue living. He would not die having disappointed the Winchesters.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean closed the door as softly as he possibly could with his arms full of groceries. He'd had a lot of interesting shopping days in the past, but this particular trip had taken the cake. It was Sam who usually had more of a sense of morality with this kind of thing, but Dean had gotten fairly uncomfortable as he had gathered groceries as the only living person in the store. The worst part had been pushing his shopping cart past the aisle that contained the auto care supplies and seeing the pile of bodies; it only took a moment to figure out that they had all drunk antifreeze. He found a similar situation in the kitchen cutlery aisle.

He'd almost stepped into the checkout aisle, but had quickly remembered. He could just walk out. No one was there to check him out, and there was no one alive to stop him for shop lifting.

He exhaled slowly as he turned at the door and looked over the eerily empty store. The overhead radio was still playing, the lights were still on, the cooling units were still running. The people were gone.

"Cas, please come back. This has to stop. I hope you're hearing this...and man, you have to tell us what's going on with the pointing thing."

There was nothing, so Dean turned tail and got out of the creepy grocery store.

When he got back to the hotel room, Sam was still sleeping on the bed. Wincing sympathetically at the drawn look on his brother's face, Dean lifted the bag of ice out of the paper sack on the table and put it under Sam's arm. The kid didn't wake up, which was a little surprising but very relieving. Dean checked the plaster on the cast, and satisfied that it was drying well, he set his focus on his gourmet cooking skills, combining an irresistible mix of frozen burritos heated in the microwave, precooked macaroni and cheese, chili from a can, and beer.

"Come on, dude, soup's on."

A sudden memory hit him, and he turned from the food without another hesitation.

"You better wake up. Don't pull that coma crap on me again." Dean started shaking the still form on the bed. "No, no, no...wake up! Sam! Sammy!"

Ten whole minutes passed like hours and days. Sam's pulse was slow and weak, and his breath was almost undetectable. Something was definitely wrong.

"Sammy!"

Finally, Sam spluttered and opened his eyes.

"Hey, hey...you're okay. You're okay." Dean helped him sit up; he seemed to have something restricting his breathing.

Sam coughed, spraying the bed in front of him with blood.

"Um. Not good."

Dean jumped up and grabbed a glass of water and a towel from the bathroom. When he came back out, Sam was falling back onto the bed again, his eyes frantic as he gasped for air.

"No, man...the air is supposed to go in and out." Dean grabbed his brother by the shoulders and tried to make him look at him. "See, like this. Sam, just do what I do."

He breathed deeply, exaggerating the actions and nodding in relief as Sam managed to focus in and breathe on his own a little.

"Good, good." Dean breathed out. "You've got this."

Sam moaned and leaned back against Dean, his breath ragged but steady.

"You're okay." Dean patted his head gently. He looked down at Sam in disgust. "Man, we have got to get you a haircut. It's going to happen, even if I have to pin you down."

Sam opened his eyes. "I'll kill you first." he whispered.

"Sure you will. Now, don't go back to sleep on me. You need to stay awake, Sam."


	6. Chapter 6

Dean bent over his brother and checked his breathing for the millionth time that night. It was 2am, but Dean knew that there was no way he was getting a wink of sleep tonight. Sam was breathing normally at the moment, but Dean wasn't taking any chances.

"Wake up." he shook Sam gently. He felt bad waking the sick kid up in the middle of the night, again, but he didn't have much of a choice.

Sam groaned, opening his eyes groggily. "Please, I need to rest. You gotta stop waking me up."  
"Can't." Dean said grimly. "Sorry. You can go back to sleep now; I just had to make sure you were okay."

Sam closed his eyes. "Mmmhmm."

Dean shifted his chair closer to Sam's head and picked his magazine back up.

"Hey, Dean?" Sam murmured.

"Yeah?"

"I..."  
Sam was cut off by a huge crash outside the door.

"What on earth..." Dean leaped up and ran to the door, Sam shakily following.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam's head was pounding, but the noise outside had distracted him from that, and he got up to follow his brother out the door. Halfway across the room, however, the walls started blurring and spinning, and Sam managed to sink into a chair, but rocketed out of his seat as Dean opened the door and _shouted_. Sam got to the door; Dean was already out the door bending over a body on the sidewalk, repeating "No, no," over and over again.

It was Cas.

"Dean, he's bleeding really bad."

"I know, I know, hand me the whiskey. I've gotta clean this out."

Sam complied.

"I think he's got a broken collarbone...man, I don't know what to do for a broken collarbone."

Sam leaned forward to examine Dean's claim. "I don't think it's broken."

"Let's hope not. He's losing a lot of blood. I think we need another towel."

Sam brought the towel.

For the next hour, they did their best to patch up the broken angel; Sam could see that Dean was fighting to keep it together.

"Dean..."

Dean was finishing a row of sutures. He didn't pause or look up as he said, "He's hurt so bad, Sam."

"I know. He's going to be okay, Dean."

"What if he isn't?"

Sam grabbed his brother's shoulder. "Keep it together. We can't lose it, not now. He'll be okay."

Dean's frantic hands stopped. His head dropped, and he ran his hands through his hair, Cas' blood leaving brownish-red streaks in it.

"Dean?"

Dean blew out slowly. "You're right. You're right man. I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not...nothing's okay...it's..." Dean was gesturing frantically, then with a resigned look in eyes, he pulled his hand down into a fist, closing his eyes and pressing his knuckles against his brow.

He started again.

"You're not alright. Not at all. You're sick, and I don't know what to do. And now Cas...oh yeah, and every soul on earth is suicidal."

Sam nodded.

"I've dealt with a lot of crap in my life, Sammy, a _lot._ You've dealt with a lot. When is it over? When do we give up?"

Sam licked his dry lips. "Not today. We don't give up today."

Dean's eyes shot up, and Sam met the fierce gaze. "Yeah? Why not? Give me one good reason. Just one."

Sam was silent for a moment, and Dean took the opportunity to continue ranting.  
"Who do we have left? Everyone we love is dead. Dad, Mom, Bobby, Ellen, Jo...need I go on? Jess! There's one for you."

Sam was still struggling to come up with a reason.

"We save the world over and over, and the war just doesn't end. People die; I've lost you, then got you back, then lost you again...I've lost everyone. Man, I don't even know why I keep breathing anymore."

Sam glared at him, heart racing. "Don't you dare say that."

"What do you want me to say, Sammy?"

"That we're Winchesters, and that Winchesters never give up, and that we'll get through this like we always do."  
"Well maybe we won't get through it. Maybe this is too much, even for a Winchester."

"No...don't say that."

Dean went back to work on Cas without another word.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam finally drifted off to sleep again around noon. He'd given up trying to get Dean to do anything besides sit at Cas' side. The older Winchester wouldn't sleep, eat, or consider next possible steps. He just sagged in the chair next to Castiel, occasionally readjusting the wet cloth on his forehead, which they were using to try to keep the fever down. The angel had some sort of infection; Dean had argued that it was too early for an infection to be setting in, but Sam had countered the fact that angels seemed to operate within a slightly different speed of time. Even though it had only been two days since Cas had come to Sam's rescue, some of the wounds looked at least half a week old, while other were obviously very fresh.

Sam's overwhelmed senses welcomed sleep gladly; although he tossed and turned restlessly for a while, the pain in his arm and his head subsided enough for him to finally sleep.

"Hello, Sam."

Sam looked around; he had not fallen asleep here, not in his and Jess' old house. This house had burned down.

"Cas?"

"Yes."

"You're in our hotel room...you're hurt really bad."

Castiel nodded and sat on the couch next to Sam. "I'm aware of that. You're dreaming. It was the only way for me to communicate with you."

"What happened to you?" Sam briefly scanned Cas; he seemed perfectly fine.

"I was held and tortured by what I believe to be reapers."

"Reapers are strong enough to hold you?"

"No; not normally. I was very surprised. It is a concerning truth. It is, however, irrelevant at this moment."

"What's going on?"  
Cas sighed and looked around. "I am not certain that it is safe here...although...it might be our only opportunity. I was told not to come to you and Dean, or speak to you." He leaned in, almost whispering in Sam's ear. "I suspect that there is something more significant than the reapers going on here. I suspected reapers from the beginning, although that did not completely make sense. They are involved, but they do not have the power or authority to create so much death in such a condensed time frame."

Sam shook his head. "What are you trying to say, Cas?"  
"I am not sure. There is something very wrong going on here, and I can't seem to trace it."

A thought shot into Sam's head. "Can you explain what was happening to me? Why were you pointing at me before?"

Cas nodded. "I saw a reaper behind you. Both times."

Sam felt his stomach twist. "What were they doing?"

Cas frowned. "They were injecting you with a toxin; a special one produced especially by reapers. It kills you slowly and painfully. Every time I tried to warn you they would stop me and transport me elsewhere."

"Why me? Why don't they just kill me like everyone else?"

"I don't know...that fact might be a clue into what is actually going on here, but at this point, I don't know where that piece of information fits in."

Sam shuddered. "So this toxin...how long do I have?"  
"As far as I know, they have only injected you three times. If they inject you one more time, there will be no hope of saving your life. Right now you are dying more slowly and probably can survive for a few weeks. If they inject you again, it will be a matter of days."

"Whew." Sam put his head in his hands. "What do I tell Dean?"  
"I'm very sorry, Sam. I don't know. I do not want you to die; if I could do something, I would."

"I know, Cas."

He felt one of his attacks coming on, and by the look on Cas' face, he could tell that the angel had sensed what was going on.

"Hold on, Sam. It will get harder from here, but you are strong."

Sam massaged his temple, hoping to keep the conversation going. "You have to help us save the world, Cas. How do we save everyone?"

Cas shook his head. "I don't believe you can."

Sam moaned as his head filled with knives, but he fought to keep talking.

"Hurry, Sam, your pain will wake you up soon. I won't be able to communicate with you like this again."

"There has to be something we can do."

"We first have to know what is going on, and I have shared everything I know with you. It's not much, but it's all I know. Help my vessel recover, and I will help you as much as I can when I wake up. I'm sorry, that's all I can do for now."

Cas was fading away, and the pain was growing more intense. Sam knew he was waking up.

"Thanks Cas." he managed to get out. Then he woke up.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

"Well, well! Look who's up! I told you this one would wake up first."  
Sam gasped at the pain in his head. He was freezing; and there was hard ground beneath him. His eyes shot open. He wasn't in the hotel room; this wasn't where he'd fallen asleep.

"Good morning, sunshine!" A figure bent over Sam and smiled at him evilly.

Sam looked around, and horror struck him in the face. He was in the same type of holding room that himself, Dean, and Adam had been trapped in by Zachariah. The walls were the same sickening, freezing gold. There were tables of food, but they were moldy and dry-looking.

Sam turned, screaming and clutching his arm. Dean's makeshift cast was gone, and the broken limb was hanging at an awkward angle, bloody and covered in purple bruises.

"What..."

Then he saw them.

Dean was crumpled, completely unconscious, in the far corner of the room. On the other end of the room, Cas was tied to a pillar in a standing position. His bowed head and heavy breathing showed that he was unconscious as well.

The man who had spoken earlier slapped Sam on the back. "How's this for a surprise?"

The other one laughed. "He looks like he's going to be sick. Again."  
Sam grimaced; it was slowly coming to his attention that the cold matter he was lying in was his own sick and blood.

"Three guesses as to where you are." The first man said. "Go."

Sam was silent. The man's face changed from cruel amusement to stone-hard fury. With a shout, he kicked Sam's hurt arm. "Go!"

Sam blinked hard, forcing himself to both stay conscious and breathe.

"Uh..." he moaned. "You kidnapped...kidnapped us from our hotel room."

"Wrong." The man threw his coat out behind him with a flourish and crouched beside Sam. "Try again."

"This is a deeper level of my dream."

"Ooh, even colder."  
Sam wracked his mind. What would happen to him if he used his last chance and gave the wrong answer?


	7. Chapter 7

Winchester. Never in the span of human history has a name contained such an utterly endless depth of meaning. Its meaning cannot be spoken in words, but it can be seen in the lives saved, the blood splattered, the hearts broken, the lives traumatized, the evil fleeing. The men that walk with the name on their shoulders are not really men, not anymore. Besides Winchester, there is not a word to describe what they are.

Sam was a Winchester, and in this moment he knew exactly what it meant, to the core of who he was. It meant that this man was not going to conquer him, not going to beat him to the ground. Sam would beat him to the ground.

This faceless nothing of a man before him was not going to win.

But Sam was in pain, and his body was broken. Well, his arm. And a few other things. He slowly ran his fingers over the broken limb, the nerves screaming alarms to every other part of him. That hurts, stop touching it. Sam didn't stop. It was keeping him grounded in reality. He gritted his teeth. This man was not going to have him. This man couldn't crush him. His spirit had been crushed so many times, but that was what it meant to be a Winchester.

Winchester also meant to get up, stronger and better than the last time.

There was that poem...Invictus? No one was going to crush him; not again.

The determination burned in him so strongly that he felt his legs straightening under him; he stood up, towering over his captor.

"You want your answer?" he asked calmly.

The man raised his arm, and an icy sharpness plunged itself into his face. His eye tasted blood. A lot of blood.

Don't stagger. You're unswayed by that knife slash. Don't stagger, stand firm.

Sam brought his fist firmly up beneath the man's jaw. This ended, here and now.

His fist met solid nothingness. There was no contact with skin or bone; it felt like metal or maybe stone. Through the fog of agony that suddenly tore through his hand, he knew he'd felt this before; it was what it felt like when he had punched an angel. Sam screamed, falling away from the...what was it?

The man was looking at him with a sad smile.

"Nice try." his hand was clamped over Sam's fist. "Sam, Sam. You should have known I would be protected by a higher power." the man shook his head, lifting a candlestick off the table.

Sam could only think of how rock solid and weighty the golden stick looked in his enemy's hand. Almost as solid as what he had just punched. Don't faint, Sam. Stay strong.

When the blows started falling, Sam realized that he had seriously underestimated the hardness and the heaviness of the candlestick. What was that game that he and Dean had played a few times as kids? Who killed Sam Winchester? The angel-man in the prison room with a candlestick. Sam focused on his breathing; the only sound of pain he granted his torturer was a quiet hiss of agony as the blunt end of the gold weapon struck his broken arm. His body begged him to close his eyes and escape, but through the blood dripping into his eyes, he made himself glare into the man for every moment of it, even as the man struck every inch of Sam that he possibly could.

Sam considered how odd it was that this was how it was going to end; him being beaten to death by what appeared to be no more than a human. He and Dean had always wondered, but they'd assumed it would be a monster, or an angel or a demon that would end them. Not a simple angel-protected man with anger management issues.

He hoped he wouldn't get a scar from that cut. The stinging pain hinted at that much.

A few breaths later, he couldn't feel the blows anymore, or even the knife wound; a huge relief, even though every cell of him was begging for numbness and blissful forgetfulness.

The blows had actually stopped; he was physically not being hit anymore. Beyond the ringing in his ears, he heard a sickening crunch. Sam forced his eyes open and saw Dean appear as the man fell.

Dean spun the other golden candlestick over his shoulder.

"That'll teach you to mess with my brother." a gravelly voice said.

There was a fragile moan, and then another crunch, then silence.

"Sammy? Oh...that son of a..."  
Reality disappeared like it was being sucked up by a vacuum, and Sam forgot everything as the darkness surrounded him.

SPNSPNSPNSPNPN

Dean stroked his brother's hair, cursing the coward who had hurt Sammy so badly. He had set the mangled arm as best he could, then wrapped one of his jackets snugly around it. He used the other, heavier jacket to cover Sam. Comfort and warmth, that was almost all he could provide his brother with right now. Sam moaned, the sound whistling in the torn flesh of his lip. His face was swelling rapidly, and his breath was coming out in odd sounds through his broken nose. His skin was mottled in a wide variety of different colors of bruising; his left eyebrow was vividly scarlet. Dean pressed his wadded t shirt to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Dude, you're gonna have an epic face scar."

The cut ran evenly along the eyebrow and all the way to the ear. Dean winced. Despite the joke, he knew that a big scar on the face was one of Sam's worst nightmares. It was vain, but it was a nightmare none the less.

_A scar might be the least of your worries right now, little brother._ He soothed Sam with his own body heat, running his eyes over his brother's body for what seemed the millionth time. The candlestick had done its damage; huge raised welts covered the exposed skin on Sam's arms and neck, and there was blood on his shirt from where the skin had been broken.

He pulled Sam's shirt away to examine his chest, his heart dropping as he saw the swelling and discoloration around Sam's abdomen.

"Don't pull this on me, man, no internal bleeding. Just, no."

Dean pulled his knees up to his chest and put his head in his hands, tasting the dry, sour panic. He was helplessly and consciously witnessing, from the front row seats, the act of life leaving his little brother, drop by drop. Sam was probably dying.

Dean's gut shouted the answer, but he swatted it away. Even having Cas was no good, now. Cas was broken...human. Fallen from heaven with all the other angels. Dean crumpled beneath it all; all the guilt. He couldn't shake it. He threw it up onto the floor, he pounded it into his head and against the walls, he cried it over his brother's still body. But there was a deadly lack of an answer, a silent absence of relief. He was alone with himself and his sins; those stabbing actions that were freezing and damning his soul way beyond anything in hell. What was the next level after hell? What else could he suffer to ease the...suffering?

Sam cried out from somewhere beyond Dean's torturous insides, drawing him out with a snap. And Dean's brain flew down another trail of thought as he tried to alleviate his brother's discomfort, humming a slightly tuneless bit of a Beatle's song under his breath. Hey Jude, don't be afraid...

After all Sam had done and been through in the past few weeks, it killed Dean that they couldn't catch a break. Sam was already teetering on the edge of death from the harshness of the trials, and what good had that done? Crowley was still...messed up, and since when had he let himself believe that this quest, this slamming the gates deal was more important than his brother; when had he started believing that lie? Dean didn't care if the whole world fell apart, or if it was never safe again. The apocalypse could reign, but he would not live without his brother; he had nothing worth living for outside of his baby brother. He hadn't for a very long time.

"Sammy, I am so sorry. I'm going to fix this. I know you wanted to do these trials, but I should have stopped them. I should have made you stop as soon as you started getting sick. I don't know why I ever thought that this was all worth it. I really don't. Just, don't die on me. You're stronger than this, no matter how crazy people get around us. What's going on with this anyway?"

Dean whistled softly. Whoever had put this shindig together had some serious creative skills, he had to admit. As far as he could tell, Cas, Sam, and himself had been put into a trance or dream-like state...for an undetermined period of time. Dean had no idea. All he knew was that he and Sam had been trying to fight against the end of the world, and there had been no trials in that world. He and Sam had tried to stop thousands of people from voluntarily committing suicide. Cas had still been an angel, sort of. It had seemed like his powers had been glitching.

He himself had had no memory or recollection of recent events in the "dream". The trials, Metatron, Naomi...they'd all been miles from his mind. Nonexistent.

"This is way too shady, Sam." he told his unconscious brother. "Did you figure this out, huh? Did you know?"

He looked at the lump of jackets that was covering his brother's arm. "And this obviously wasn't just part of the dream, so maybe there's a connection to reality and the dream...I don't know."

A low moan came from behind him, and Dean scrambled to his feet. "Cas!"

He hurried to the ex-angel, slapping his face to wake him up. Cas didn't regain consciousness, but he did moan again. Dean untied him, catching him as he fell and laying him gently on the ground. After a quick check for injuries, he returned to his brother's side.

SPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean had drifted off to sleep next to Sam, his hand protectively over his brother's chest. Sammy's breathing was shallow and rattling; Dean prayed that he hadn't punctured a lung or something.

"Wake up, sun shines!" a voice said.

Dean jumped to attention, his fists up.

"Nice reflexes." Metatron commented. "Those will definitely come in handy for you later on."  
"Metatron? What..."

The angel shook his head, patting Dean's shoulder. Dean stiffened, this was definitely off. Innocent, lonely little Metatron, gloating in his face. He was pretty sure that that expression was gloating.

Metatron was nodding, watching and realizing that Dean was trying to put it all together.

"Allow me to help your cognitive process here, Dean. Uh, how do I put this...I'm the mastermind in an evil plot to end the world, and I knocked all the angels out of heaven. You just didn't catch on to me in time, Dean. How does that feel? I made the angels fall, and you couldn't stop me. I wasn't even on your radar."  
"This is all you? No way." Dean laughed, but there was a cold knot in his stomach.

"Don't you see? I couldn't believe that you fell for my innocent little story in the first place! I have the biggest grudge with heaven, I have more reasons than anyone else to destroy this whole system. Plus, I am one of the wisest beings in existence. Who besides me has the right to rule?"

Now that it was before his eyes, Dean could see the pieces falling into place. No one would have suspected Metatron; but who else had more of a bone to pick with heaven? Metatron had been abandoned, had complained about the confusion in his home, and had a slightly hidden ego as a former scribe of god.

"But why Sam and I? Why Cas? Why did you lock us up?"

"You really can't figure that one out?" Metatron smiled.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean slowly blinked at the angel who was suddenly looking down at him. Another John-Smith-angel-man freak had appeared behind Metatron a minute ago, the result being Dean landing hard on his butt with little stars dancing around his head. It didn't make sense for these idiots to have this many candlesticks, anyway. What was this, Clue?

He was still processing what Metatron had just told him.

"You're locking us up..." he began haltingly. "...because we're dangerous?"

"Well," Metatron dragged out the word. "not _dangerous_, per say. Annoying, yes. Persistent, yes. Shall I go on? I know that as long as you're on the loose, you're not going to leave me alone to do my business."

"You actually think we're a threat?" Dean let his chest puff out a little. This guy knew what was up.

"I'm not going to take chances; I play a strategic game; no unnecessary, bumbling human risks allowed. Besides, did you really think I didn't know who you were when I met you? I'm the scribe, and you really thought I wouldn't be fully aware of the chaos you and your brother have wrought? Granted, most of your deeds have been results of crazy luck and chance, but luck and chance seems to be on your side a lot."

"Agree to disagree, then...but why not just kill us? Why lock us up?"

"I'm not going to give away the spoilers so fast, Dean. Just a hint though: I wouldn't plan retirement or anything. Your death is coming, just not in the way you expect."  
"To be honest, I don't have any expectations for my death. Have you seen the crazy hell of my life recently?"

"Touche." Metatron agreed.

The whooshing sound that Dean knew so well filled the air, and the angel and his henchman were gone. Dean rubbed his hand over his sore head, muscling down the panicky dread in his gut. It was time to go. Time to get out. He grabbed the wall, using it to pull himself up; his feet wobbled unsteadily under his weight, but he was up, making his way towards the figure in the corner.

His knife had been taken off him, so Dean had to work at the knots around Cas' wrists with his fingers. It was their best shot; Cas might not be angel anymore, but he was an extra back and pair of arms to barrel down some doors and carry Sam to safety.

Cas crumpled in an ungraceful heap to the ground, and Dean knelt by him, checking him for visibly evident wounds as he tried to wake his friend.

"Cas, come on man. Get up. Need you to help me save Sammy."

A dark drop of blood dropped out of Cas' nose and slid down to his lip, where it rested in a shining little pool. Beyond that, Dean could see no further signs of hurt.

"Cas!" another shake, and Castiel was up.

"Hey." Dean grabbed his shoulders firmly and pulled him to his feet. "You good?"

Castiel blinked hard for a moment, staring down at his feet. "I...think so. Yes, I'm alright."

His face came up, the blood on his lip catching the bright light of the crystal chandelier. His blue eyes blazed brightly as his hand firmly clasped Dean's throat. Dean struggled, screaming soundlessly as he tried to kick his way to freedom and air, but Castiel's grip never faltered.

"Thank you, Dean. I am alright." he said blandly.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean's vision was failing him as he stared his friend in the face. He tried to gasp Cas' name, but all that came out of his mouth was a gurgling moan. His chest screamed, begging him to send in some air; he heard a snapping, ripping sound as Cas slightly shifted his grip. The bolt of torment in his neck appropriately accompanied the sound.

Great, now he was definitely going to need a hospital.

A thought occurred to him as Cas continued to casually strangle him. The angel had been downgraded to human, which meant...

It was worth a shot. This was probably what they taught teenage girls in those self defense classes. And now that Cas was a human, it should work.

With every remaining ounce of strength he had left, Dean kneed Cas as hard as he possibly could.

Cas collapsed to the ground with an abnormally high-pitched sob, grabbing himself at the sudden and unexpected pain. Dean crumpled on top of him, fighting to remain conscious long enough to remove himself from harm's way. He kicked out at Cas' head as hard as he could, and satisfied that his attacker wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, he embraced the darkness of sleep.

He woke a while later -he didn't know how much later- to the sound of Sam's scream. Intense distress laced through Sam's cries as he clutched his middle with his good arm, his bad one sticking in a congealed pool of the blood that had come from it.

Dean struggled to his feet, stumbling light-headedly as his body continued to refuse air. He fell at Sam's head, taking it in his lap in an attempt to soothe the younger man's distress. Sam looked up at his brother miserably, tears streaming down his face.

"Dean...hurts." his white teeth flashed as he grimaced. "Help me."

"I'm trying, man. It's gonna be okay." Dean panted.

"You...sound horrible." Sam gasped, grabbing his brother's wrist.

"Shut up."

Sam moaned again, and Dean pulled the damaged body closer.

"Where's Cas?"

Dean just shook his head, even though Sam wasn't looking. He didn't have the breath or the heart to try to explain that one.

"Dean?"

"He's still unconscious."

Sam inhaled long and deep, then blew out, attempting to get control of himself. Dean listened to the breathing with jealousy. He was going to pass out again...soon.

"Can't...breathe."

"Dean?" Sam tried to turn himself around to see his brother, but fell back with a scream.

"Don't...stay still, Sammy." Dean croaked, leaning against the wall.

"Are you okay?"  
"Not really." he closed his eyes.

He had no idea how long they would last at this rate. Waking moments came and went, and when they came, he checked on Sam, who seemed to have completely accepted unconsciousness.

"Don't die on me, man."

At this point, it might not even matter. A sad realization, but Dean grimly forced himself to acknowledge that neither of them had much time left in their condition; and no one even knew to come and help them.

Lights out.

When Dean saw the light again, another thought crossed his mind; a single remaining hope. It was a long shot, but there had never been a time when he'd been absolutely sure of...anything.

Reboot Cas. It seemed like the only solution. They were going to die anyway, there were no more options.

The door to their cell suddenly burst open, and Dean snapped into full awareness.

Someone else had been sent to kill them. That was obvious in moments. A handsome younger man, who carried himself like an angel but limped like a mortal rushed towards Dean, angel-but-fallen knife shining deadly in his fist. Dean threw himself over Sam as the angel-man came forward, the torn remnants of his angel suit flapping around his body. As Dean fell against Sam, his hip painfully found the butt of Sam's .45.

Yahtzee. With one swift movement, he pulled the pistol out of Sam's belt and flipped himself over. The man was right over him knife raised for the kill. Dean squeezed the trigger, and the would-be assasain toppled, a bullet hole decorating the gap between his eyes.

Dean dropped the gun, sprawled out full length next to his brother. With a gasp, he leaned his head on Sam's shoulder.

It was only then, with his head at the proper angle and the distraction of imminent death out of the way, that he noticed their salvation: the door had been left open, and there was no one guarding it.

"Sam..." he moaned, struggling to his hands and knees. Standing seemed impossibly difficult, as if his head was made of lead, weighing it close to the ground. He called his brother's name again.

Sam slowly came to.

"Dean?" he picked his head up. "Ahh". He winced, leaning back again.

"We have to go. Now."

He wrapped his arms around Sam's chest. "You're gonna have to help me a little, man."

Sam only took a moment to take in the open door and understand his big brother's plan.

"Wait."

"Sam, I have to drag you. There's no other way, and we have to do this now!"

"No I know, just put my arm up on my chest so that it's a little stabilized."

Dean did as Sam asked. Sam cried out as his arm was moved, but he didn't complain.

"Let's go." Dean wrapped his arm over Sam's chest again. Like snails, they progressed across the cold gold floor. Dean was so oxygen deprived that his vision was completely black, but he continued crawling in the direction of the door. He could feel Sam trying to help, pushing his weight a little with his feet.

Finally, they were out; out of the room, which from the outside appeared as a grimy old shed in an abandoned warehouse. Dean could feel Sam shivering from the contact with the wet, filthy concrete floor. He laid his face against it, welcoming its solidness and the brief rest it offered. He tried to inhale, but only received the slimy taste of motor oil and rusty dust in return.

"How are we going to get out from here?" Sam moaned, tears running down his cheeks from pain.

"Not yet. I have to go back. For Cas."

"Dean..."

"I'm not leaving him!"

The end of the sentence came out as a sob; he wanted to give up. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't see. The pain was unbearable.

It didn't matter; it could never matter. Cas was family, and family was all that Dean had left.

"Here." Dean shoved Sam's gun back to him. "I'll be back."

"Hurry, Dean. I think...I think he's coming back. Metatron."

"What? How do you know?"  
"I don't know, Dean, I just know. Hurry."

Dean found himself on his feet; he forced himself to not over think it. Just let the adrenaline do its work. Then he could die. Not yet, but then. When Cas was safe. When Sam was safe.

He stumbled back into the room, grabbed Castiel under the arms, and dragged him out. Somehow, he and Sam managed to hold each other and Cas up and out into the sunlight.

"Survivors! Hurry!"

Dean grimaced, trying to place where the voice was coming from. He wasn't standing anymore, and the sun was washing away the cold from his bones. Sam's head rested on his leg.

Exit stage Dean Winchester, end scene.


	9. Chapter 9

Lost and found, Dean Winchester's breath. Dean Winchester, please report to lost and found and claim your oxygen. Dean Winchester to lost and found.

Blessed oxygen was seeping through Dean, a tremendous symphony of relief. Slowly, he opened his eyes to see the ceiling above him. Not a crappy motel; no weird stains. Not an angel prison; no gold.

He sat up, taking a moment to gratefully enjoy the gift from the oxygen mask hugging his face. His fingers brushed the plastic tube that crossed over his cheeks and under his nose.

The room wasn't a hospital; it looked like a house. Beside the king-sized bed that Dean was drowning in was a mahogany night table, littered with personal-looking photographs in cracked, bronzed frames. A glass of water with a blue straw poking out was within arms reach, and Dean quickly emptied it. Exhausted by the activity, he sank back into the millions of pillows that surrounded his head and shoulders, but only rested a moment in goose-feather heaven before he sat up again. Sam. Cas.

"Hey!" he called. His voice sounded like it had been flushed down a toilet, then sent skydiving, then rolled over with a broken lawnmower. He coughed and wheezed before trying it again.

"Hey!"

No better, but at least it was a sound. There was a bit of dead cat in that noise, actually; dying cat.

Footsteps came up a set of stairs just beyond the room, and the door swung to let in Dean's host.

The man's broad shoulders filled the door frame as he sternly took in the invalid hunter on his bed.

"You're awake. 'Bout dang time." he grunted, his dark eyes penetrating Dean.

"Where's my brother?"

"Which one's the brother? Big foot or Tom Cruise?"  
"Um...Big Foot." Dean was taken aback. Cas looked like Tom Cruise? Who crossed the wires in this guy's brain? "His name's Sam. The other one's Cas. Where are they?"  
"You sound like hell froze over."

"Where's my brother?"

"In the guest room. Just came back from surgery; you're lucky we found you when we did. For more than one reason."

"Surgery?"

"Internal bleeding needed to be stopped. Fixed up the arm while they were at it. He'll be all right, someday." The dark skinned man shook his head. "What a mess he was, too. All three of you, actually. Barely got air into you in time."

He stepped forward, shaking his head and holding out his hand. "Name's Malcolm. This is my home."

"Dean. Thanks for taking us in."  
"We reals got to stick together, isn't it a fact?" Malcolm grunted.

"Reals?" Dean echoed curiously.

"Where've you been the last three months? Reals, as opposed to fakes? Ya know, sane men versus the ones that went psycho?"

Dean swallowed his tongue. "Three months?" he whispered.

Malcolm shook his head. "I can't wait til you're rested up enough to tell your bit of this hell story." he sighed heavily. "You need to rest. I'll explain more later."

"Is Cas awake?"

"Nah, still out cold."

"Hope it stays that way." Dean muttered.

Malcolm jumped on that. "Is he a fake? He better not be a fake."

Dean tensed. "Don't kill him. He's my...brother."

"Thought Gigantor was." Malcolm was fingering a holster at his belt suspiciously.

"He is. But so is Cas. Please, if you can keep him sedated..."

"I have to kill him if he's a fake." Malcolm growled.

Dean turned on his look that hadn't crossed his face since, well, Ruby. The ultimate threat spoken in a pulled back lip and a hard glint of the eye. "If you kill him, I will end you. I swear."

Malcolm backed away from the bed, exactly three steps, sizing Dean up cautiously. "I'll keep him sedated. But if he wakes up and goes Chainsaw Massacre on us... I have people in my life, too. They come first."

"But you'll keep him sedated." Dean confirmed. It wasn't a question.

"We'll give him the strongest stuff we have. Now, rest."

"I want to see Sam."

"He's gonna be alright, son; rest."

Dean gave Malcolm what he estimated to be a ten minute departure time before he climbed out of bed, thanking his lucky stars that they'd hooked him to portable oxygen. Time to pay Sam a visit.

His feet couldn't carry him fast enough, especially when the first four rooms he checked were unsuccessful. It didn't take long to figure out that the building wasn't so much a home as a series of homes; the hotel had been turned into a sort of odd collections of apartments and hospital rooms, he realized. He wanted more details on what was going on, but those could wait.

Two floors later, he was fatigued and about to give up.

He leaned heavily on the door frame of the nearest room.

"You okay?" a voice said from within the open door.

He looked in at her, chestnut hair falling a short pixie cut over her forehead right above curious brown eyes...or eye. The girl looked seriously injured; her left eye was covered in thick white bandaging, which matched the many other bandages across her chest, around her right hand, and he could only guess, under the blanket that covered her legs. She wore an oxygen mask that matched his.

He straightened and grinned a little. "Come here often?"

She relaxed, slouching her uninjured shoulder towards him and batting her eyelashes. "No, but I could be persuaded to."

He pushed himself away from the door frame, unsuccessfully stifling a moan as he remembered that his lungs weren't the only parts of his body to have suffered. He wondered how their captor had kept them alive for three months; he wondered if he'd been beaten in his sleep to correspond with the nightmare sequences. It explained Sam's arm, not to mention the crap he felt like right now.

"You're the new guy, huh? You and those other two guys?"

"Dean." he confirmed.

"Alex." she stretched her left hand out, and he grasped her fingers lightly and shook it.

"Alex. Do you know where I can find them?"

"Yeah; first floor...north end. It's kind of like the ICU down there."

"What's going on around here? What is this place?"

She shifted slightly, her lips parting slightly as she grimaced. "You really have been out of it for a while, huh?"  
"I think three months, yeah."

Her eyes widened. "Three months? How are you not dead?"

"Trust me, I haven't stopped asking myself that yet."

"I don't want to tell you...it's awful and hard; I can barely cope with it and I've known for three months."

"Trust me, handling the impossible is in my job title. My brother and I...we do the supernatural stuff for a living."

"I thought I'd heard it all..." Alex said slowly after a moment of silence. "I don't know, three months ago you would have been certifiably insane, but now...okay, I guess."  
"Please just tell me what's going on. Trust me, I can take it."  
"So, three months ago all these men in suits fell out of the sky. Women too."

"I know about that part. What happened afterwards?"

"They kind of all set to kill mode. Like the zombie apocalypse. They just killed everybody they could find. Everybody lost somebody. We all would be dead if it wasn't for Malcolm; he kind of took charge. We keep moving around, usually hotels or malls or any other large buildings."

"How many of you are there?"

"Two hundred. Used to be more."  
"Are you all that's left? On all the earth?" Dean's throat dried and shriveled in dread as the question escaped his lips.

Alex closed her eyes and dug her nails into her forearm, shakily inhaling.

"Alex, hey...it's okay." he pulled her fingers away from her other arm and held her hand to his chest. "It's okay. Don't worry about it."

"I don't know!" she cried. "I don't know! What if we are all that's left?"

"It's okay." he swallowed the sour bile in his throat and smiled at her. "It's going to be okay. We're here now, me and Sam. We'll fix it. It's what we do."

She closed her eyes again, sagging on the pillows. Gently, he patted her hand and and set it back on the bed. "I'm going to go see Sam, now. I promise you Alex, I'm going to fix this."

His lie tasted bitterly toxic, but the truth was too terrible. The truth that this was probably the end. That Dean was at a complete loss for a place to begin looking for a solution. The truth that if he lost Sam again, he was done. Forever.

SPNSPNSPNSPN

To say that Sam looked horrible was an understatement. Amidst the tubes and wires, the damaged body looked like it had been salvaged from the zombie apocalypse. Dean forced himself not to puke as he mentally worked through the sight of his brother. Sam looked better than he had when Dean had seen him last; his arm was wrapped nicely, the bruises and lacerations from the candlestick were beginning to heal. If Malcolm had been telling the truth, the internal bleeding was less pressing if not under control all together.

He allowed himself to breathe. Sam was alive.

He settled his own beaten body into an armchair at his brother's side and took in the room around him. It honestly looked like a hospital room; the amount of work and hauling equipment was beyond Dean at the moment. It brought a moment of comfort to see firsthand the instincts of the humankind. Despite the impending doom, there was this small group that had stuck together and found a way to survive.

Dean pulled away the bandage from Sam's bare chest and abdomen. Based on the stitch work and the fact that the incision was beautifully uninfected, Dean could only assume that the little community had picked up a surgeon or doctor of some kind. They couldn't have been much luckier, not really.

Dean sighed and kissed Sam's forehead. They were going to be missing him in his own room soon enough, and he had one more stop to make before getting back.


End file.
